Interview with Author Heath Fox Part 1

On Friday I had a phone interview with author Heath Fox of such novels as The Seed, Skywalker and the upcoming novel Blood 4 Blood. It was an interesting interview with such information like Heath Fox is really his pen name and that part of Fox' pen name derived from actor Red Fox. The post will be in two parts and I unfortunately did need to leave a bit out due to space limitation but here are some excerpts:

Jenlap: As an author are your characters driven from real people or experiences?
Heath Fox: They're not driven from real people. In Skywalker what I wanted to do was create a character that could fit in the world today, a realistic person. The character Jack is a native american searching for who he is and where his place is. As far as his culture goes he doesn't really claim his culture. As it turns out through a series of events he realizes maybe there is something to what his father and grandfather have to say.

Jenlap: I've noticed that some authors feel most inspired at a certain time of day, is this the case for you?
Heath Fox: No, not really. I come up with ideas all over the place. At 2 o'clock in the morning, I came up with the storyline for a book I'm working on called Blood 4 Blood. Stephen King came up with misery on a plane. He was at a hotel in London when he wrote it on a napkin.

Jenlap: I guess it's good to have a pen and pad handy.
Heath Fox: I usually do it all by memory and put it on my laptop later.

Jenlap: Which of your novels was most difficult to write and why?
Heath Fox: The Seed. It's a novel about what's going on today, you're either pro-America or a terrorist. You're either on their side or our side. That right there is the atmosphere that has developed over the years from the previous administration. In writing the novel I wanted to put across the argument by saying here we have an Iraqi man that his wife and family was killed by one of our bombs trying to find Saddam Hussein. Which in turn created a terrorist because of our policies, how we do things, how we perceive the rest of the world and how the world perceives us...The way I ended the novel (The Seed), I didn't really want to end it that way, I did it because it was expected, I guess. I wanted it to just be a draw because it is a draw right now...

Jenlap: In the novel, The Seed, you ask yourself the question is there another way other than violence. Do you feel that this is an ongoing question for individuals?
Heath Fox: I think that this is something we as individuals need to confront on an individual basis and address...that violence doesn't work period. History has proven through time and time again, all wars end with conversation...